domain:infonomena.substack.com
iprayiam3
3hr ago
I know. I am saying then the connection you are making to abundance and the cultural malaise makes less sense. AI (not art specifically or even meaningfully. That was not meant to be causal, just exemplar) will increase the meaning deficit as it removes purpose for a lot of people.
Hadad
3hr ago
I am the op. I don't think the problems with our spirituality are from AI art.
At this point, the main reason why I write about politics online isn't to change other people's minds necessarily, although I do enjoy that when it happens. I have too many more directly pressing personal concerns around money, personal relationships, and so on to dedicate any substantial amount of energy to attempting political change. I think at this point the main reason why I write about politics online is to get feedback that makes me feel less like an outlier. I equally dislike the left and the right, so it is affirming for me to discuss politics in places where not everyone is totally a fervent supporter of one political side or another. Places like Reddit and X generally disgust me, I dislike both the "everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is an evil fascist and it is our duty to punch them" vibe and the "I am a based trad-wife-seeking Aryan and we should literally kill the libs" vibe. I wish I could find more places online with more of a detached, looking-at-politics-objectively vibe that avoids ideological dogmatism and that kind of simple "my political opponents are evil and we should kill them" moralism that is so common online. /r/moderatepolitics can be good sometimes. TheMotte is definitely more right-leaning than I am, but you can have decent interesting discussion here so I appreciate it. rdrama.net has a few sociopathic ghouls on it, but the politics discussion generally mocks both the fanatic left and the fanatic right so I appreciate that places as well. I can't really think of any other places, which really surprises me. One would think that, with hundreds of millions of people online, it should be easy to find many forums that avoid virtue/vice signaling, empty moralizing that treats the opponent as ontologicaly evil while saying nothing interesting about politics, or just general chimpanzee-like shit-flinging at others. But I haven't been able to find many.
SkoomaDentist
3hr ago
I prefer to back into a parking spot, or pull through a double spot to be facing out. Some people call it “getaway parking,” others deride it as “ghetto.”
Lol, whut? People actually complain about that when it's a very sensible thing to do?
I don't do it myself but that's just because I prefer backing out of a parking spot, not backing into it.
fmac
3hr ago
businesses there deeply need some kind of readily accessible parking for their customers
Fairly certain this has been disproven over and over again. The vast majority of customers to downtown (and most streetcar suburbs are "downtown" at this point in major cities) do not arrive to stores by car. In Toronto, it's a tiny fraction vs walk/transit/bike.
Toronto's downtown BIA's are fighting the province who wants to remove bike lanes (they want to keep them). They protested when the bike lanes were put in, have seen the results, and now want to keep them.
Also what I am calling the "Iron law of road scaling" comes into play. Road capacity is fixed, population is going up. Eventually we have to change something, and on street parking is by far the lowest productivity use of road space. Inevitably it will have to go.
unless you want to undermine small ownership in favor of the ubiquitous big developers
You do speak truth here. Streetcar suburb main streets/retail areas are infinitely better than condo podium retail areas. We need more pro-active municipal governments who nudge developers to make better retail spaces. There's no reason we can't have smaller retail units in condo podiums that mimic the way small storefronts on streetcar suburbs are.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
3hr ago
I am happy to trivially inconvenience people who would otherwise lower the quality of conversation. That's the point.
iprayiam3
3hr ago
Ok but this is a wholly generalizable dismissal of the ops observation about material malaise within a society of abundance. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily that it’s wrong. But I think those who recognize the ops observation should consider AI abundance making it worse.
Sure there will still be transcendent art. Just like now there’s plenty of meaningful and spiritually fulfilling lives and communities within the culture. I myself have the latter in spades.
But it can be both true that the potential for any individual or subgroup remains and can be found, while the broader culture deteriorates and the ratio worsens
Bartender_Venator
3hr ago
Yeah, as serious advice - I didn't become a devout football fan until after I left England and started traveling. It's the world's sport, so one of the best ways to make quick friends wherever you go. I've had great nights out from Bulgaria to Bogota start by chatting with other fans at an Arsenal bar.
fmac
3hr ago
The common thread between LA and NJ is there's just too damn much traffic.
If only there were other transportation methods that scaled better.
FistfullOfCrows
3hr ago
Israelis liquidated entire vilages, women children and all during the Nakba. They would deserve everything that's coming to them, were this universe even slightly just.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3hr ago
Please do, I am frequently compelled to do the same and understand completely.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3hr ago
I'm not blowing you off; I just don't have the time in the day to keep responding to everyone for now. I may take some select points here and respond to them in a future top level post.
I'll just link to the comment I made on @Dirty_DemSoc 's "WHY BOTHER" post. Since its relevant to the protests AND the assassinations.
Quote:
And yet we know that democratic elections don't completely avert violence, or else Mexico's most recent election wouldn't have been so damn bloody. Turns out that violence is also a way to influence outcomes in a democracy, when you don't expect the votes to go your way 'organically.' So there's a bit of a feedback loop.
Right now we're in a phase where a minority faction is fomenting chaos for want of being able to achieve their goals via electoral process.
In a sense, this is ALSO one faction that is demonstrating that it has motivated, competent shooters on its side, so if something real DID pop off they are at least capable of carrying out deadly violence. The capacity for this violence is no longer just theoretical.
Of course the basic motives will be more complex than that, but the goal of having mass protests is ALSO to demonstrate "we are numerous, we are organized, and we could turn violent if things don't change in our favor!"
But we had a spate of lefty-coded assassination/killing attempts going back at least to Trump's earshot, and THAT trend is a bit scarier because the people of his tribe either ignore it (tacitly approving, I'd say), line up in support like with Luigi, or actually denounce it and try to lower the temperature and root out the radicals among them who are willing to get froggy.
Anything other than the last option will mean MORE attempts going forward. I'm waiting with a TON of consternation for the first FPV drone-based assassination that succeeds.
PLEASE try lowering the temperature, Dems.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3hr ago
As I have said, you really need to reevaluate the claim that you are "2 sigma" beyond the depth and breadth of emotions that most people are experiencing.
I'm always open to evaluating new evidence to the contrary. But this claim of mine has been confirmed time and again in my experience. In particular, I'm quite confident that I'm more of a doe-eyed hopeless romantic than you are.
It appears I have been largely unsuccessful in communicating my views on love. I would recommend reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling if you want to understand my views on love better.
The book describes the dialectical stages of the development of Abraham's faith when he is asked by God to sacrifice Isaac. We begin at "mere" faith, a mere unreflective belief -- his mode of relation to his faith is unmediated immediacy, because this faith has not yet been subjected to critical inquiry. We proceed through doubt, despair, and resignation, until finally arriving at a faith that is identical to the faith we started with, and yet somehow not the same at all. He's back exactly where he started, and yet everything is different. His faith is now a mediated immediacy, mediated by the preceding dialectical development; he no longer believes in spite of the absurd, he believes because it is absurd to believe, the absurd is his reason for believing.
In brief: there is no such thing as authentic love until you have realized the impossibility of love.
Love is impossible. But its impossibility is what makes it beautiful. If it weren't impossible, it would have no value.
FistfullOfCrows
3hr ago
Yes, Iran sponsors terrorists and a reduction in sanctions would have made them more able to do so
Oh no, Iran sponsors terrorists? How awful, I'm sure the US didn't literally hand out ground to ground anti-tank missiles to "the good kind of terrorists" in Syria. Terrorism? Really? Is anyone left in 2025 who gives any weight these words?
TIRM
3hr ago
I live in a suburb. Almost all roads are 1 lane each way. A few major roads are 2 lane each way with 3rd turning lanes at intersections. I have never in my life even second hand known someone who died walking around a suburb. American pedestrian deaths due to cars has exploded in the past few years, it has reached a peak of 0.0000220 likelihood per person per year of dying by being hit by a car while walking.
Our road infrastructure is not that overwhelming. The freeways are 4 lanes each way.
wayfarer
3hr ago
Farm labour could be in theory much more profitable but it is in general low-skill, replaceable workers, minimal starting costs to switch workers and so on. So it will go toward low-cost workers.
In theory it could pay two or three times more, but relevant food prices would increase (note: it would not affect all food, for example grain production in developed countries is highly mechanized, but strawberries picked manually one by one would noticeably increase in price).
But yes, it is not going to happen any time soon.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
3hr ago
"What was the coach even thinking?" and "They keep trying to walk it in this year", but I'd appreciate more personalized advice to shake the trail.
There's also "Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"
TIRM
3hr ago
I've been to China plenty. Their driving norms are hard to take. Someone on a scooter making an illegal left hand turn starting from the right side of the road through multiple lanes of traffic. I'm cringing watch him weave through cars going both ways.
City busses don't slow down for or avoid pedestrians. You need to proactively get out of the bus's way. I've seen a few people almost get hit by busses. They don't have our very American understanding of pedestrian right of way.
People driving with no seat belt and pulling it across their body as they approach the seat belt cameras, then letting it go when past the cameras. More effort than just wearing a seat belt.
Taxi drivers aren't the person on the taxi license. One was clearly underaged and smoking.
Hadad
3hr ago
+1 to that post. I remember it, and most of what you write. The sides are getting better at hurting the outgroup and minimizing trouble.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3hr ago
FistfullOfCrows
4hr ago
No Aryan ever called me a Goy
I can see how you might think the hoons are the problem, but it's actually the 'safe sensible' drivers who inspire this behaviour, because they legit get mad if you 'cheat' and get in front of them. For example, in Australia when they're going 20km under the speed limit and you are already only going a max of 110kmh (70mph) on any major highway. So they sit there in the right (left) hand lane doing fucking 90 (55) - but if traffic clears up in the lane next to them and you put your indicator on, they will speed up until there are cars in that lane again. But if you just drop a gear and go for it you can usually pass them before they realise.
Or those pricks who decide to merge as soon as they reach broken lines, instead of going to the end of the lane because that's how it was designed. If you give the appearance of not following suit by not putting your indicator on there, they will decide to teach you a lesson by riding the line between lanes, not giving you enough room to pass. But if you put your indicator on and wait for them to merge enough to let you past, you can flick your indicator off and merge properly.
Driving defensively is cool, but not nearly as cool as driving offensively.
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